Here, after their first taste of the miseries of a sea
life, the alternative of Islam or slavery was again put before them.
"And, by the holy stone of Nicaea," said Sir Eberhard, "I thought by
that time that the infidels had the advantage of us in good-will and
friendliness; but, when they told me women had no souls at all, no
more than a horse or dog, I knew it was but an empty dream of a
religion; for did I not know that my little Ermentrude, and thou,
Stine, had finer, clearer, wiser souls than ever a man I had known?
'Nay, nay,' quoth I, 'I'll cast in my lot where I may meet my wife
hereafter, should I never see her here.'" He had then been allotted
to a corsair, and had thenceforth been chained to the bench of
rowers, between the two decks, where, in stifling heat and stench, in
storm or calm, healthy or diseased, the wretched oarsmen were
compelled to play the part of machinery in propelling the vessel, in
order to capture Christian ships--making exertions to which only the
perpetual lash of the galley-master could have urged their exhausted
frames; often not desisting for twenty or thirty hours, and rowing
still while sustenance was put into their mouths by their drivers.
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